ting-house, like the
auction-flag of later periods, but offering in this case goods without
money and beyond price. But if it be Haverhill village, then Abraham
Tyler has been blowing his horn assiduously for half an hour, a service
for which Abraham, each year, receives a half-pound of pork from every
family in town.

Be it drum, bell, or horn, which gives the summons, we will draw near to
this important building, the centre of the village, the one public
edifice,--meeting-house, town-house, school-house, watch-house, all in
one. So important is it, that no one can legally dwell more than a
half-mile from it. And yet the people ride to meeting, short though the
distance be, for at yonder oaken block a wife dismounts from behind her
husband;--and has it not, moreover, been found needful to impose a fine
of forty shillings on fast trotting to and fro? All sins are not modern
ones, young gentlemen.

We approach nearer still, and come among the civic institutions. This is
the pillory, yonder the stocks, and there is a large wooden cage, a
terror to evil-doers, but let us hope empty now. Round the meeting-house
is a high wooden paling, to which the law permits citizens to tie their
horses, provided it be not done too near the passage-way. For at that
opening stands a sentry, clothed in a suit of armor which is painted
black, and cost the town twenty-four shillings by the bill. He bears
also a heavy matchlock musket; his rest, or iron fork, is stuck in the
ground, ready to support the weapon; and he is girded with his
bandoleer, or broad leather belt, which sustains a sword and a dozen tin
cartridge-boxes.

The meeting-house is the second to which the town has treated itself,
the first having been "a timber fort, both strong and comely, with flat
roof and battlements,"--a cannon on top, and the cannonade of the gospel
down below. But this one cost the town sixty-three pounds, hard-earned
pounds, and carefully expended. It is built of brick, smeared outside
with clay, and finished with clay-boards, larger than our clapboards,
outside of all. It is about twenty-five feet square, with a chimney half
the width of the building, and projecting four feet above the thatched
roof. The steeple is in the centre, and the bell-rope, if they have one,
hangs in the middle of the broad aisle. There are six windows, two on
each of the two sides, and two more at the end, part being covered with
oiled paper only, part glazed in numerous sma